Castles In The Air
by Rot-Chan
Summary: We all hope for tomorrow. Sakura and Sasuke. Astral dreaming, seraphic hopes, a childish wonder. Infatuation with him. He's always been a savior to her, anyway. :.Sasu/Saku one-shots. Angst, chance meetings.:
1. A Paragon of Virtue

**Castles In The Air.**

_We all hope for tomorrow._

**. . . . .**

**01**: A Paragon of Virtue  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Sasuke can bear Sakura's crying, those soft cries, not that grinding, broken sobbing, that terrible sobbing. At least it's quiet. He can live through this.  
><strong>Theme<strong>: Chance meetings; canon AU (if Sasuke had come back)  
><strong>Prompt<strong>: Home

* * *

><p>Sakura is crying quietly, now. At least the crying is quiet. The loud, broken sobbing, that's the absolute worst type of crying. Sasuke can hardly bear that - but this is somehow more bearable. He can live through this.<p>

The snow mutes everything. All bloodshed, all debris, all scattered bodies and broken dreams.

They'd fallen together, when the explosion had momentarily stunned the earth with its total brutality, when a wave of shock and heinous heat had blurred everything. Fallen like useless pieces into the ground. Unexpected, unaware. This is War.

He'd found Sakura, stumbled across her on the battlefield in the midst of the terror, the barrage of slaughter; watched her punch the head clear off of that nameless ninja's shoulders. Unyielding, she was struggling to survive. Weren't they all, anyway? This would all be forgiven, for both sides.

Even now Sasuke is almost fortunate that he happened to find her.

The snow, it's falling softly. Everything hard and ugly is softened by the sky.

Aren't childhood virtues simple?

The snow always made you the happiest. It was this wonderfully clear, cool happiness, it struck you like nothing else quite could - when you awoke to see the land of frost and hidden fairy creatures outside your bedroom windows, before death could exist in somewhere like your head, or worse, your life.

Everything is suddenly thrust into an excruciatingly painful motion. Everything is pushed forward. Everything is being forced into motion. It's Sasuke. Sasuke knows he has to do it. She's not weak, no, such a word can never be applied to her. Sakura will never be the WEAK one anymore, but she's hurt. Her hurt is omnipresent, her hurt is the eye of a brutal and callous storm that looms above them with careful indifference, her hurt is what is twisting fate and making it awful.

They can be content to lie there for ever, and be buried by the snow. It's even simpler to fall asleep when you feel so tired and alone.

(What will their fossils look like? Should they be holding hands, when they're immortalized?)

But they aren't alone. They exist together, here.

Cautiously, cautiously. Sasuke is standing up, his leg aches and pangs, he almost falters; then he stands and bends, he's picking her up -

Brutal, brutal screaming. Electroshock screams, torture screams. What has he done to her?

Sasuke's heart thrums. Back to life, back to the present. Sakura is gripping for him, scrambling for him. Cat claws through cindered gloves. Poppy blooms across a powdered forest. A lovely, innocent ground of kiddie faith.

They exist together. But no one else is here.

Come on, he almost thinks to himself. Just to keep himself going. Sasuke is very close to not going any longer. He's already damaged her, somehow - intuition is the sharpest thorn. It strikes him clearly. When death stares and picks at its fingernails and taps the ground with its feet and looks on without its face showing, why are you tempted to kiss her cheek and keep her there?

It's too hard to hurt someone else.

But he must hurt her. Each step - and Sasuke won't admit his legs are weak enough that he could plummet into the ground, stay there in the ground, the ground is the softest thing, the Calm and warmth, it doesn't make sense but it is somehow - fall into the ground, begging for life. Begging for life, for her.

Sakura moans. Shattered.

Her voice will ground him, more than falling can ground him. The ground is the enemy, disguised as something beautiful and easy. Sasuke thinks faintly, that he can no longer feel his feet.

A bomb, a_ ka-puum! _in the distance. Sucking them in.

Please, take us home, all right? Sakura had smiled. Smiled before the fighting had started, before they'd been separated. An expression that was more fleeting than any half-hearted promise.

Sasuke walks ahead. Her body is a heavy, treasured weight. Dead-weight, a precious weight. Despite his best efforts, there's the pang again - non-distinct but absolutely present, in his left leg a twisting and relentless knife, on and off, on and on and off again, and they'll soon be _sinking..._

Just two more steps. Then five.

Ten turns to twelve. Then fifteen. Eighteen. Twenty-four.

Sakura cries softly. Bitter and innocent childish crying, when you want the pain to fade away more than anything else. Sasuke holds her crying close, she's giving these broken little cries into his clothing. His clothing is wracked with frost, numbed with dampness from the cold.

Yet she no longer gives off those terrible chilling moans, moans of those already plucked away to a realm of death, or before-death: the Waiting Room. Blood's still falling. He decides not to acknowledge it. Ignorance is survival, isn't it?

Sakura buries her face into his shoulder. She's still conscious, somehow - even through the bleeding, the torn flesh, the wrapping of the wound. She was always awake, alert. Eyes glazed over in horror, in faint understanding, _I'm going to die_. Her entire abdomen, all cut up, nearly shredded. A gory horror film brought straight to life, an impossible nightmarish reality.

These kinds of things you must accept, or you accept death instead. Sasuke had accepted it. He's never been the type to accept the too late's, anyway.

Thirty steps more...(?)

Ahead, a brutal and hideous camelot. Their camp, and all the medics. A hideous haven. Where have they been? People must be wondering.

Sasuke walks on. For the both of them.

**.::****::.**


	2. Te Deum

**Castles In The Air.**

_Such fleeting invocations. The dam will always break._

**. . . . . **

**02**: Te Deum  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Sakura is starryeyed and looking ugly - no, not ugly. Despite how the dressings and the splints and the barrier shielding her wounds consumes her. She's too valiant for that, a bit of a hero around here. Sasuke can't _not_ visit her.  
><strong>Theme<strong>: Chance meetings  
><strong>Prompt<strong>: Shatter

* * *

><p>Sakura is starryeyed and looking ugly.<p>

Not '_ugly_', not exactly - the word is too callous and cruel for her, too harsh. No one who returns from the battlefield is ever deemed ugly, even if they're ripped apart, riddled with scars, cast up, bandaged up, maybe missing limbs. They're too appraised, too valiant to ever embrace something so superficial.

Her stomach heals tentatively. No infection to speak of (at least not now; but like her pain, the process is tumultuous). Bed rest, absolutely. Doctor's orders. She'll be released in a matter of weeks.

For now, it's being held captive from reality, an almost welcomed release from the constant sense of a looming threat, the desperate wracking of the mind for any tactic, any plan, what's crucial for survival. In a hospital, survival is taken care of for you. For now, it's that crucial bed rest with pink gelatin and crackers with soup, juice with a straw on a breakfast tray; bad television re-runs as quiet background noise in the soft, hazy static that seems to occupy her room, 177. (Fitting.)

Sasuke hears of her by accident, something like an accident - he's getting his wounds checked, bracing dull pain as the nurse repairs sutures that burst. Right there in his left leg - and he'll always remember that death is a temptress when he looks at it later. He overhears the other nurses talking about her.

She's saved lives. A wonderful hero. A bit of a hero around here.

Sakura fills the role perfectly. It slips on with ease. Nothing forced, nothing fake. Genuine altruism.

Sasuke listens. Against better judgement he listens. Anything horrific is possible here.

But nothing horrific comes. Only that Sakura's saved lives - she saved them before she was 'taken out of battle'. It's said carefully, because phrases like 'almost killed' and 'nearly blown to bits' simply aren't appropriate. But these nurses, they know the whole story. They do it out of courtesy.

Room 177, right, Haruno is in room 177, doing pretty well with recovery too...

Their voices drift, phantasmic and nearly non-existent, drifting ghost-like down the long, antiseptic corridors of the hospital as they walk out the door, away from his cot and all the cots lined up here. With everybody else waiting for repairs.

Sasuke gets up. He's given the OK from his buoyant nurse, she's done her handiwork and seems too appeasing, too _young_to refuse any request so very kind and sweet as: I want to go visit Haruno Sakura.

(Oh, it's simply lovely of you!)

Sasuke almost scoffs at her approval. He's using crutches now - his mind remembers just how it all works, the mechanics of it, the sore feeling underneath the arms wearily familiar. Tap, tap, tap down the halls, all vacant. He's on her floor.

Past two more nurses. They smile at him, almost hesitantly - ignoring the bandages on his cheek (flying shrapnel) and the cuts on his exposed arms (from the initial onslaught) as he walks on. Limps on. Tap, tap tap.

Finally: 177.

Would he have gone to visit her, if he hadn't heard her being mentioned? Talked about like some grandiose hero. The most Heroic Medic of them all. (She'll laugh when she hears it herself.) It's too tempting _not_to see her.

Sasuke knocks twice, walks in. And there's Sakura, lying there. Suddenly all wide-eyed with anticipation despite how, fuck - she's really beat up this time, totally consumed by all the brutality of too many dressings and protective splints and her abdomen, hidden from view, he can only picture it. Sasuke doesn't want to picture it, beneath the clean white barrier, the covering.

She's looking starryeyed, and it's his fault. But she's never ugly.

Sasuke sets down his crutches beside her bed. He sits down carefully on it, testing the waters; she doesn't mind it.

It's all unnaturally warm. She fumbles with the paperback in her lap. He sets it aside for her.

It's been seventy-two hours since they've come back, and yet they're still lost in the stagnant, viscous state that a gruesome battle tends to bring. They aren't abnormal (if only they knew it). Sasuke feels strangely abnormal.

At least things aren't as abnormal when he's in the room with her. It doesn't really feel much like a hospital, with the personal items - her sweater and a childish stuffed thing on the pillow, and of course, the book - and the flowers. Too many of them.

Sakura was in the ICU for twenty-four hours.

Sasuke doesn't know about this, because he was unconscious for over half of a day.

They can't look at each other for a moment. Then Sakura touches Sasuke's hand, and he allows her to. He's always been wary with close contact, noticeably uncertain - as if too much of it would make the abyss within him grow wider. An overwhelming desire to have more and more if it, after such a long absence from the world.

Sasuke clears his throat. Through half-mast eyes he traces her finger tips. Somehow, her hands are almost all right. It's ironic.

There's an unsaid thank you. _Thank you, more than anything_. It's almost too much for Sasuke, this enormous weight of gratitude pressed upon him, a magnificent force all from her. It always seems to be. It feels incredibly wrong.

Sakura _deserves_to be saved, from everything around her that haunts them. It's something Sasuke always knew, but kept tucked away for an exceedingly long amount of time.

"It's going to leave a beautiful scar." Her voice cuts through the silence, welcomingly. Sasuke slowly lifts his head, his gaze. Her eyes, clear as ever. Not even dulled by opiates.

"The cut, on my stomach. Don't you think?"

He thinks. Then kisses her. So swiftly, but Sasuke is absolutely present - even aware not to lean forward too much, not daring to press any part of her body. Heel of his palm pressed into the bed firmly.

Sakura responds. It is a dampened and quiet exchange, one of utter relief, of total mitigation. Even after all these years - it's been eight years already. It's so utterly foolish to wait too long, before things are forced into motion, and there's no avoiding it.

Sakura can almost feel it - the abatement of something that's always been around, like a hideous ghost, a dark spirit. A very slow process. They make do with what they can. They always have.

It's been a while since Sasuke felt entirely vulnerable in a way that's too clear. He breathes out his reply in one great big exhalation, almost rushing the words to escape him: "Yeah. It will."

Sakura parts her lips through slow, warm crying, honey-sweet tears on rough cheeks. Staring in puerile hope - and her eyes have never revealed such truths before.

A precious undulation, immersing him.

**.:: Ω ::.**


	3. Our Abyss Opens Up

**Castles In The Air**

_I know that you won't tell on me. _

**. . . . .**

****03**: **Our Abyss Opens Up**  
>Summary: <strong>Sakura wanted to keep this vision tucked close to her heat forever. The perfect punishment: seeing Sasuke writing against the restraints. The ugliest of extremes. But he came back.**  
><strong>Theme<strong>: **Special Occasions **  
><strong>Prompt<strong>: **Birthday**  
><em>AN: _**Happy 17th Sauce. I'll always like you as a character no matter what you do. For clarification, they are currently around 20 to 21 years of age when Sakura thinks back to the past.

* * *

><p>She can remember it clearly, she can see it in her head, the image, it's crystal. When Sasuke hobbles out of the room on crutches. It's almost like a pleasant reminder, that they're human and they're living.<p>

Sakura can recall when he was sitting in the hospital bed like this, and everything was reversed; when everything was Bad and the next day seemed Terrible.

The good versus the bad, it was always a war that could be fought, the underlying root to whatever will happen. And whatever did happen, it happened for a reason. What about this time?

Sakura remembers the last.

**. . . . .**

"Miss...?"

It was funny how it had ended up happening. Nothing ever quite matches what the imagination can craft. Wouldn't it be ideal.

It was almost funny, how the entire thing had ended up happening at all. The surreality made it almost peculiar. It hadn't come as a huge explosion of emotion, or as a crippling shock, or as an enormous conclusion to everything that had been out of alignment. It had been a quiet, almost dull and fatalistic event in the distance, far-off from them. There was an inkling as to what was to be of it when they'd first brought him in on the stretcher, and the arms _needed_ to be strapped down. Restrained.

Sasuke reeked of slaughter.

A second nurse was standing in the doorway. There was a shared sense of panic, but Sakura was not included in it. Something heavier hung around her, shielding her from it. There was a thin, effective little wall between them, a pane of indestructible glass. A small window into this confining space, a confinement room.

(Are you sure you want to see this, Sakura? See him, like this?)

She'd never been more sure.

Sakura wanted to keep this vision tucked close to her heat forever. The perfect punishment: seeing Sasuke writing against the restraints. It was like something out of a film, a wild fantasy. The ugliest of extremes, he was straining, shrieking in this grating low voice, so awful it practically burned to watch, it was so horrible - Let me out, LET ME OUT, LET _ME OUT!-_

Sakura glanced down. In her pocket there was one last smoke. Three blocks from her house was a cheap convenience store, with dirty magazines and packaged food and popsicles and of course, cigarettes. The stick between her hands was an anchor. Her lighter was almost dead.

More screaming dulled by the glass. The other nurse in the room would be scarred forever from this, bless her heart. An aid rushed in. They had the cold sheets, sopping wet, bundled up. Sakura had been in this part of the hospital before, but never the maximum level, the forbidden place where only top doctors went. But she had permission, just her history was a pass enough.

Sakura slowly inhaled. Her throat was on fire. She was on fire. No one noticed her.

All the wet sheets, all wrapped around his body. It didn't subdue him. It _froze_ him. It enraged him. Anger was a brilliant flaring spark in the face of all authority. There was a wall between Sasuke and the world.

Nothing cathartic had _ever_ existed, actually. It had not been cleansing, nor was it truly a relief to anyone - Sasuke coming back. Everything that had loomed over them like a terrible giant before seemed to disappear, but another more fearsome creature took its place, a shadowy threat, its depths somehow more contemptible. Stretching on before them forever. Insanity is omnipotent.

"Miss!" The same voice from before. Now closer, coming from down the hall. Someone had spotted her.

"What exactly do you think you're doing? You can't _smoke_ in here, this is a _hospital_-"

"I KNOW, Jesus, - I know, all right? I..." Sakura turned around abruptly, she might has well have thrown up her arms. But it wasn't necessary. Her voice died. Each word was decimated. Empty. She was gutless. There was a hard look in her face, no particular emotion present; rather, it seemed like some foreign and unwanted feeling was desperately attempting to surface.

Sakura lowered her eyes. The attendant didn't recognize her or her presence here, how she'd been carved into these hallways. If you broke the rules, you were a stranger.

The cigarette was stamped out under her foot. She walked briskly away.

(That feeling, was it shame? Was it hate...)

The stairs were a labyrinth as she took them, she was fleeing every floor, her steps screaming back, every step louder than the last. No, not shame, it had never been shame for Sakura. She could never be selfish or childish enough to lament now. Their salvation laid before them, an offering to their peace.

She coughed when she cried. Peace. _Their_ peace. The bitterest irony.

**. . . . .**

Kakashi met Sakura in the lobby. There weren't any tissues lying around. She was content to use her sleeve.

"Do...do you have any, cigarettes, I need, one." He'd already pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. It was like a sixth sense for him. Wordlessly he slipped it in between her fingers. Their fingers brushed. Sakura almost cried again. Every word was broken apart by a silence, a weakness, because she had cried too much so far. She'd been keeping track of it.

Sakura walked outside with Kakashi. She remembered the rules this time. He even lit up for her. It was painfully kind and cordial.

"You smoke? Sometimes?" Sakura asked. The menthol stung. Kakashi shifted, almost uncomfortably.

"Well, the best of us do it. Every now and then." There was that sun again - relentlessly hot and edgy, beaming down on them. Bringing life to everything, even when nobody wanted it. "The best of us can give into temptation."

Somewhere far off, there was everyone else, living, living. They were unaware of what Sakura was doing. Would they be disappointed if they discovered she'd warmed up to a vice like this? How hypocritical, a medic smoking!

Kakashi turned to her. His voice was painfully easy on her. "...You went to see him."

Sakura inhaled deeply, a knee-jerk reaction. Went to see him, yes, she did. She saw him like he was an attraction, no one could get close to him. Everyone was kept away, _only_ to look.

"Yeah." She was courageous enough to say yes.

After a moment passed between them, he roughly pulled her that necessary step closer, rested Sakura's head onto his chest awkwardly. She didn't need to hold Kakashi and she didn't want to. It was all they needed to feel closer.

Sasuke was still lying upstairs, in _that_ room, in _that_ bed. She wanted to feel safe just for a moment, before she went back to it. That was all.

**. . . . .**

When Sakura first heard about their plans for Sasuke - she was entitled to hear about it, she was seventeen and age meant privilege there - she'd screamed desperately into her shirt, right into the medical coat. Went down the hall in a whirlwind of self-containment, locked herself inside the supply closet, and screamed there only to herself, because oh God, his mind, _his_ _mind_.

Someone had thought to do 'what was best' because there was 'really no getting through to him now', there'd been 'absolute relapse' of the senses, there were no senses, no logic anymore. Everything was all just frantic. (It's_ Electroshock Therap_y, it's all that's left, do you understand Sakura? It isn't terrible. It's like taking a very long rest, and the person, they're very relaxed, Sasuke will be relaxed. He won't be _hysteric_ any longer. Do you understand it, Sakura?)

But what about his mind. His _head_.

It was as good as asking something simple and ridiculous, like if they would every be happy again. Who knew. No one knew anything anymore, wasn't that what it was like?

**. . . . .**

_Two days before_. Sakura woke up crying in her sleep. No one told her much that day. Solitude for him again. He was put in the confinement space again.

_The first day._ Begin treatment. It would all become a reality. Sakura couldn't stomach breakfast - where was Naruto? Why the fuck did Naruto have to disappear again?Why couldn't he be with her, and let Sakura ruin him for a while? She needed to ruin someone with all the sadness she felt, It was too much to carry. She sobbed over being so selfish, just for a second, just in her head.

_The sixth day._ There were reports, and better news. He was a grand subject. The shocks had been quieting. (Two treatments already.) Sakura felt her heart twist and bury deep into itself. She wouldn't remember ever feeling this numbed to everything. Everything else that existed while they were too busy consuming the world.

**. . . . .**

In the end, all it took was five treatments.

Five became Sakura's lucky number. The wall broke.

**. . . . .**

All at once, it seemed like everything was quiet. Truly quiet, for the first time in a long time.

Sasuke's mind was finally quieted. An enormous house, one bursting and pounding and filled with an overwhelming memory, had finally been quieted.

Sakura was careful. Tsunade had told her to be. She had to be quiet, too.

No longer in the maximum levels, Sasuke was moved to the regular ward. He would be as regular as possible in this place, in the hospital. Three ancient weeks, and he was somehow all right. She'd believe it if she could.

Sakura had gotten special permission to bring him the cake today. July 22, but it was the best she could do; and Sasuke didn't have a way to keep track of the date. Was he even aware that he should want to know how much time passed?

She knocked on the door. Five raps, and then she gripped the handle reassuringly and walked in. It was sterile and silent. No get well mementos, no flowers. Thank God.

They were alone because Sakura was trusted, she'd worked there, and Sasuke was still on a medication and nothing was 'wrong' anymore, not visibly.

Sakura smiled. But her heart was falling, that sickening elevator drop straight down to her feet. Sasuke had never seemed so vulnerable before. Lying there, cast-off and utterly still, _soft_. His eyes were soft to her.

It was disturbing. Her voice was abated, but then it was the past all over again. She attempted to smiled. "Hello, Sasuke-kun."

The cake was in a very tiny box and it was only a sentimental gesture, it probably would never be eaten, not even tomorrow at lunch like the nurses suggested. He'd never liked sweets, but Sakura was too traditional for her own good. "I brought you a gift." Silence. Nothing registered.

Sakura looked at him, really _looked_. There was something strange about his eyes. They were distant. Was he even present? (The thought of it being possible, that she had been right, that they'd fried his brain and that he was _gone_, it made a hard lump start to rise in her throat.)

"It's your birthday today, right? Your seventeenth..." Sakura trailed off, walking towards him. She could lie if she wanted. She could make this bitter reality a little softer, for his own good. "But...I don't really _know_ what to say, since you never even liked happy birthdays, all that..." She tried to be light, but it was too difficult. Her shoulder sagged.

Sakura gently sat beside him on the bed; she was tense, gritting her teeth, she hoped he wouldn't reject her. Still, she tried to keep her composure.

"But anyway," Sakura shifted, eyes downcast, "I brought you a cake. I mean, I know you won't want to eat it, but..." She almost laughed, it was so ridiculous. Nothing like this should even matter at all.

Sasuke's eyes were following her as she slowly unwrapped the box's string. Undid the flaps. Then presented him with the cake, thick red frosting and a poorly drawn tomato. She figured she might as well be nostalgic. Oh well.

Sakura felt the lump grow harder, it was getting harder and harder to see. For some reason. The cake was shaking from her hands. No matches/lighters/candles allowed, sorry. She'd do her best. "We'll have to pretend," she managed with a sigh.

She cleared her throat, her smile was so feeble. She was going to break, any second maybe. "I'll start."

Gently, she set the cake down on his lap. She couldn't look at him. They were close, but she felt like she'd never get close enough to him. It was just sinking in that the physical distance was so utterly insignificant, why had it mattered all these years? How far away they'd been? That didn't matter at all.

"Happy...birthday...to, you...uh...I..." It was all over after the first line, Sakura gave in completely, the tears had already started, she felt moronic and pathetc and she was too young to feel this old. She felt _old_. So did he.

There she was. Leaning over, to the side, she was crying practically into the cake. Sakura wanted to keep her face hidden; she wondered if this emotion, this brash display of sorrow and confusion and fear would set him off, what would happen?

Yet - there was a weight on her head, so sudden Sakura stilled for a moment and stopped the little-girl sobbing, that crying that catches in your throat and makes you silent and clogs you up. Sasuke had a hand on her head. What could've been nothing said too much.

For some reason, it made her cry again. Sakura had the guts to finally look up, just look at him, it was the least she could do so he could _know_ everything.

Sasuke's eyes: still distant, but he was there, his eyes were hard and he couldn't speak but he absolutely remained in their realm. God. _God_. Why did it have to be them?

**. . . . .**

Sakura knows she'll never grow too fond of it - everything pure. All the candied dreaming, the faint hopes of total restoration. It's ground into you when you become a medic. Don't be too hard on yourself, if you did everything you could...

Everything in life is tentative because darkness always lingers. The mind is a fragile thing, but so is the heart. It's something she'll slowly learn.

"Sasuke." He turns briefly, just looking back over his shoulder. Sakura swallows. The world around her seems almost dreamlike. The crutches stutter and slide across the linoleum and it sounds impossibly far away.

"Thank you. For coming in to see me." Her words are lighter than her voice, heavy from the dose of soporific drugs.

So easy, so simple. They feel utterly removed.

**.:: Ω ::.**


End file.
